The Wargo Blog

I’m getting ready to start writing my next (third) book. As I mentioned before, I’ve been having conversations with my publisher about what I’m going to do next and I think we’ve decided on the topic.  I’m waiting on a contract from my publisher then I’ll get started.

In the mean time, I decided to register a domain and open up a site where I can list information about my different books. Additionally, there’s another John Wargo writing books so I have to have a way to distinguish my books from his.  I brought the site up this weekend, it’s called John Wargo Books and it can be found at www.johnwargobooks.com. Check it out when you get a chance and be sure to tell your friends!

August and I spent some time on the Blue Ridge Parkway yesterday, driving home from a scout camping trip. We swung by the Blue Ridge Parkway on the way home for some sightseeing and hiking. Here’s some pictures of us at one of the pull-offs.

Devil's Courthouse

August on Rock

OK, so what is Dunkin’ implying here? That the other doughnut brands have smoke in them? Huh?

Check out the picture. It’s kinda hard to see, look for the transparent decal on the window, right above the trash can.

Smoke Free Doughnuts?

I was poking around in a mall in Plano Texas today and stopped by a Barnes & Noble just to see what’s new, but of course to see if my BlackBerry book was on the shelves.

As I looked through the computer books I noticed something that’s really indicative of the smartphone market. There were a TON of iPhone and Android development books (I didn’t count, but I imagine there were around 30 overall) and even quite a few Windows Phone development books. As I searched and searched throughout the whole computer book section I only found one BlackBerry book.

Now, the good news is that the only BlackBerry book on the shelf was my book (BlackBerry Development Fundamentals), but how sad that with the 15 or so BlackBerry books on the market, there was only one on the shelf. As much as RIM’s still selling a bunch of devices, it’s clear they’re losing mindshare.

It’s cool to see my book on shelves, and I usually mention to the sales clerk at checkout that I am excited to see my book on the shelf. When I do this, sometimes the clerk acts excited for me (which happened today) but sometimes the clerk acts like it’s no big deal. I’m not famous or anything, but they can’t have that many authors come in off the street, can they? I secretly hope they’ll ask me to sign the book, but that never happens. Why is that?

Wouldn’t you be more interested in a book signed by the author? Why not have a pack of post-it notes that says something like ‘Signed by the Author’ with a place to sign – they could then post it inside the cover and someone who wanted it could keep it and someone who didn’t could pull it out and throw it away. That wouldn’t be that bad, would it?

I’m wrapping up what is my 17th Lotusphere conference. This has been a big event for me, lots of good things and some not so good things happened here.

I’ve made a whole bunch of friends here, won a couple of IBM awards here, even met my wife here (kissed her first time here too).
Had my most consecutive nights of heavy drinking here, probably had my most consecutive hangovers here too. Probably the most consecutive nights of least hours of sleep here too.

I’m probably one of the only people in the world to meet and marry a booth babe by being here.

This is where I was when I found out that my mother passed away.

I’ve been a presenter here many times. Gotten lots of good compliments here.

Can’t wait to take the kids to Disney (here). Not sure if I’ll try to speak here again next year.

We’ve had a really fun week. We had a big snow storm on Monday (3 – 4 inches of snow, big for Charlotte) and the kids were out of school. They had a blast playing in the snow with their friends and made a real big day of it.

Monday night, rain came in and they cancelled school again for Tuesday – can’t go to school when the roads are covered in ice. Yet another day of sliding and sledding around with their friends.

Last night they cancelled school again (for today). Temperatures in the 20′s made it so any ice that melted yesterday (no snow trucks here) froze again. Not sure what the kids are going to do today, but I imagine it’s sledding and sliding around with their friends again.

The only issue I have so far is that Anna keeps making chocolate milk for the kids and has not once brought any to me. That’s downright unfair.

Anyway, this weather is killing me in another way. It’s not because I don’t want/like snow, this has been beautiful and reminded me of Akron in December. Nope, what’s bothering me is that I started building a new desktop PC (the old one was almost 5 years old) and I’ve been waiting on some additional parts so I can finish the build and start using the new system. Some of the parts were on a truck Monday, ready to be delivered then pulled because of the weather. Other parts should have been delivered yesterday, but no dice. My computing happiness is sitting in warehouses mere miles away and I can’t get my hands on them. Ouch!

Hopefully things will clear up tomorrow and stuff will start moving again – I wonder how long it will take UPS to catch up?

Well, it was a year ago that I was misdiagnosed by a Doctor covering for my primary provider. I went in because I felt horrible and she, after sticking a couple of fingers up my you know what, decided I had a prostate infection and prescribed some anti-biotics.

Right in the middle of all of this (it being three days before Christmas) we had a flurry of activity on our house. A small bidding war began, one couple offering a ridiculous amount and demanding the right to counter and another couple, the ones who first looked at the house as soon as it went on sale 8 months previously, who made a very nice and reasonable offer. The rest, as you say, was history – the house sold.

We quickly began panicking and negotiating then quickly headed down to NC to drop off the kids at my brother’s and head over to Charlotte to begin looking for a house. We found the one we currently live in on the very first day. Anna walked in, looked around, and said ‘this is it!’

Did I mention I was misdiagnosed? Well, through all of this it turned out I had pneumonia and swine flu. So, as we looked at houses, negotiated with the seller and dealt with the county and development architecture review board I was near death. I spent most of the week sleeping or trying to sleep. Our Realtor got real used to me just lying down and trying to sleep as we went from place to place. I was finally able to get the right diagnosis and some really cool drugs – only took me about 6 weeks to recover, just in time to move south.

Anyway, I’m happy we’re here! We love the neighborhood and we love our neighbors. It’s a great house, a great place to be and we’re happy. I can’t help thinking about how bad things were a year ago as we did all of this stuff – hence me waxing historically.

Well, we just finished a very busy weekend. My sister and her family came in to town and we had a lot of fun hanging out. The twins loved playing with their cousins and it got pretty crazy here while they were in town. I cooked the traditional big turkey dinner on Thursday and Anna says it was the best ever.

On Friday we avoided Black Friday and got some things done around the house. Ed and I installed timer switches on our carriage lights on both garages – set the timers and the lights go on and off every day, nice. We put up a fake Christmas tree in the big dormer above the front door – very nice (You can read about it here and see a picture). I even put together this cool new lighted snowman we got for the front yard – now I just need to figure out where to put it.

Anna and picked up a new rug for the front entryway – the one we had there was very old and falling apart. The new one looks awesome and we’re going to try to pick up one for different parts of the house every month until we get everything we need. I can’t wait.

Time to get back to work.